


It Wasn't Always So Cold

by fallintosanity (yopumpkinhead)



Series: Once We Were Young [5]
Category: Marvel (Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Brotherhood, Character Study, Fluff, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-25
Updated: 2013-05-30
Packaged: 2017-12-09 11:09:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/773523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yopumpkinhead/pseuds/fallintosanity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thor, Loki, Sif, Hogun, Fandral, and Volstagg have known each other since they were children. They grew up together. They've gone on hundreds of adventures together. They've always come back laughing, with great trophies and greater stories. </p><p>This time, something goes wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Now (Fandral)

**Author's Note:**

> When I wrote [J'entre dans la légende](http://archiveofourown.org/works/494516/chapters/865093), I made a choice to use a particularly negative portrayal of Loki's relationship to Sif and the Warriors Three, in order to demonstrate Loki's thought process and state of mind. But I don't think it was always all bad - I think that once, perhaps too long ago, they really were friends. I'm writing this story to explore that dynamic.

The temple was collapsing.

“Let me go!” Thor howled desperately.

The temple was collapsing and Loki was still inside.

“Let go of me!” Thor screamed, and lunged toward the temple. Fandral planted his feet and held on to his arm – Thor would run straight into the falling building if they let him and they couldn’t lose them both. The prince thrashed and Sif, holding his other arm, stumbled. Thor yanked against her weakened grip and broke free; beside her, Hogun struggled to hold him alone and failed. Thor knocked him away, grabbed Fandral with his freed arm, and flung him aside. But Volstagg still had him around the waist and strong as Thor was, Volstagg was stronger. He held Thor trapped for just a moment, long enough for the rest of them to recover, to regain their hold on him.

A groan of twisted ice and tortured stone and the temple’s great spire began to topple, eerily slow, straight along the vaulted ceiling’s center beam as if the hand of Fate itself guided it. What was left of the roof gave way beneath the tower’s weight, and a vast cloud of dust and snow blasted across the mountaintop. Fandral squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head away, braced against the rush; shards of stone and ice tore at his exposed flesh and he redoubled his grip on Thor’s arm, forcing himself not to flinch.

Then it was over and he opened his eyes to see the cloud rolling away down the sides of the mountain and across the bleak hills of Svartalfheim. Where the abandoned Jotnar temple had been was now a vast field of shattered stone and broken ice, hazed by a mist of fine snow and dust.

“No!” Thor roared, and wrenched away from them; by unspoken agreement they let him. He bolted toward the rubble and they followed, shouting Loki’s name, their voices too loud in the sudden quiet after the thunder of the collapse. Fandral clambered into the debris field, his feet slipping on the uneven ground, and began digging, ignoring the sharp-edged stones cutting at his hands and arms. Loki was under there somewhere, trapped – Fandral could not allow himself to think that he might be dead. Not Loki, who was slim and dark and strange but still _theirs_.

Not Loki, he begged Fate silently. Let him still be alive.

_Please_.


	2. One Hour Ago (Hogun)

The abandoned Jotnar temple loomed darkly at the top of the mountain; Hogun eyed it warily as they approached, but could see nothing to indicate recent habitation. The snow, deep enough to reach their knees in places, was pristine, untouched, sparkling under the dim Svartalfheim sun. Deep drifts hugged the sides of the building beneath icicles as long as Hogun was tall, and a layer of ice coated the great stone doors.

The six of them stopped for a moment to take in the sight, the temple strangely beautiful despite having been built by a race of monsters. Thor looked eager, and no wonder: this was his adventure, his idea, and they had finally reached the good part. Fandral, too, had an excited air, bouncing on the tips of his toes as if about to leap forward, while Volstagg scrutinized the plateau with shrewd eyes. Sif looked reserved and apprehensive, and Hogun was glad that she at least was cautious. He himself thought the expedition was a risky proposition at best, but Thor had been persuasive, and anyway Hogun knew better than to let the two princes run off on their own.

As for Loki, he stood at Thor’s shoulder, openly awed as he gazed upon the temple. Hogun took the moment while he was distracted to study him; it was rare that Loki allowed his expression to be so unguarded. He was a scholar and a historian, so he had rather more leeway to admire the temple than most, but Hogun still found his interest discomfiting. Whatever treasures the temple might be rumored to hold, it was still the product of beasts, monsters of the foulest sort, and ought not be admired. But it was only a moment before Loki schooled his features once more into his normal polite blankness, and when he glanced Hogun’s way no trace of wonder remained on his face.

Climbing the mountain on which the temple sat had taken most of the day and their energy, but now they were up here they found a second wind. Thor strode forward, across the glittering snow to the temple’s massive doors – many times the height of a man, and even twice a giant’s height. Hogun stayed back a little while the others followed close on Thor’s heels; he would watch their backs and ensure no dark elves – or stray Jotun – came sneaking up behind them. Fandral and Sif spread out slightly, guarding their flanks, while Volstagg stayed close to the two princes.

They’d nearly reached the doors when Loki suddenly darted in front of Thor and Volstagg and flung out an arm. “Wait,” he said sharply.

They all froze, instincts honed from years of adventuring together. Loki stayed still a moment as well, his head cocked to the side as if listening, then he stepped forward slowly, his hand extended before him. Gold light danced around his fingers and Hogun suppressed a shiver of disgust. Loki’s seidr was unnatural, and moreover womanish – it did not suit a prince of Asgard to dabble in such things. But Hogun had long since fought and lost that battle; Loki would not listen to reason and insisted on pursuing the dark art.

Yet Hogun could not deny that there were times, as now, when having a practitioner of magic was useful. The glow around Loki’s fingers brightened, then turned a bright icy blue for an instant before vanishing. Loki shook his hand as if stung, then stepped back and motioned Thor forward. Thor clapped him on the shoulder. “Well done, brother. I knew we’d brought you for a reason.”

Loki smirked at him, but Thor had already turned to the doors, Mjӧlnir in hand; he hefted it and brought it smashing down on the layer of ice over the stone. It shattered and Thor and Volstagg brushed away the pieces, revealing intricate carvings of Yggdrasil and the Norns. The heavy doors gave beneath their push and stale dry air blasted out. Sif wrinkled her nose at the musty smell. “I suppose that means there’s no other open entrances to worry about,” she muttered.

“Probably,” Thor agreed, though he was only half paying attention, eyes squinting as he peered into the gloom beyond the doors. The interior of the temple was dark and still, but before any of them could dig the torches from their packs, Loki made an arcane gesture. A trio of witchlights, gold and shimmering, sprang into existence over his head. He waved his hand toward the open doors and the witchlights floated inside, illuminated a high-ceilinged entry hall. There were more frescoes here, of scenes Hogun didn’t recognize – battles with frost giants cast as the heroes, the valiant defenders against hordes of elves or dwarves. Other carvings depicted the great world serpent, twining round the corners of the ceiling and the tops of the archways that led deeper into the temple.

Thor – of course – was the first to step inside, Mjӧlnir half-raised as if he expected a frost giant to leap around a corner at him any moment. Loki was right on his heels, fingers moving slightly as he guided the witchlights, and the rest of them followed, fanning out to peer through darkened archways and around corners. On their way up the mountain, they’d talked about the possibility of a secret Jotun cult that had survived hidden for the centuries since the great war; of traps and snares left behind by the giants to protect their temple; of more mundane hazards like wild beasts making their lair in the abandoned building. Yet everywhere they looked they found only more darkness and dust. Hogun kept his mace at the ready; the eerie silence and strange architecture raised the hairs on the back of his neck, and the longer they went without seeing any of the dangers they’d imagined, the more uneasy he became.

The temple was sized for frost giants, everything a little bit too large, and the six Aesir looked like children at play as they moved carefully through the temple. There were touches of gold here and there that shone in the glow of Loki’s witchlights, but the Jotun favored some kind of gleaming blue-black stone for the majority of the structure and the decoration. It seemed almost to absorb the light, and as the warriors spread out across an enormous room that appeared to be the main ritual chamber, first Volstagg, then Hogun had to light torches to see. The heat of the flame was startling in the freezing cold of the temple, but Hogun found himself glad for it, and he noticed that Sif stayed near his torch and Fandral near Volstagg’s. The two princes, on the other hand, seemed not to notice – cold had never seemed to bother Loki in all the years Hogun had known him, and Thor was too wound up, prowling from corner to corner in increasing frustration.

“There has to be _something_ here,” he growled.

“Why?” Loki asked reasonably. “I told you it’s been abandoned for centuries. The frost giants had no reason to leave anything of interest.”

“You said it was abandoned because Father chased all the Jotun back to their own realm,” Thor said. “I hardly think, if they had our army on their heels, they would have stopped to gather all their valuables.”

Loki rolled his eyes hard enough that his whole head moved; on the other side of the chamber, Fandral snorted. They’d had this argument before they’d left Asgard, when Thor was still trying to convince them to join him on his quest to loot the ancient temple for trophies. Thor glared at both of them, his mouth open to retort, when Sif interrupted them with a shout of, “Over here!”

Hogun spun around to see that Sif had made her way up onto a high dais at the front of the room, and now stood on her toes, brushing dust and ice chips from the carvings on the wall. Gold glinted beneath her fingers, bright in the torchlight – then Hogun realized what she’d found and gasped.

Golden breastplates, marked with the crests of the noble houses of Asgard. Trophies from the last Great War, some still marked with ancient brown blood. Dozens of them—hundreds—lining the wall like grotesque gilding, beneath a coating of ice and dust.

“By Yggdrasil,” Volstagg breathed. He lifted his torch to illuminate the wall as the rest of them gathered warily at the foot of the dais.

“They truly are a race of monsters,” Thor spat. He vaulted up onto the dais and crossed to where Sif was working. He was just reaching over her head to help her clean the higher parts of the wall when Loki shouted, “ _Stop!_ ”

They all froze, Sif stretched on her toes with both hands still on the wall, Thor behind her, not quite touching. Loki’s green eyes were wide and his hands were half-extended from his sides, fingers twitching like a cat’s whiskers. His voice low and urgent, he said, “Sif, don’t move. Thor, back away. Now.”

Thor glanced down at Sif and his jaw tightened. “Loki—”

“I need you out of the way, brother,” Loki said, and licked his lips. His fingers had gone still, tense; Hogun felt his own shoulders tighten.

Finally Thor nodded and backed away, slow and careful, and when he jumped down from the dais Loki relaxed slightly. He swallowed, licked his lips again, and tilted his head, his eyes going distant as he studied Sif’s pose. “My lady Sif,” he said, “I must compliment you on your marvelous talent for arousal.”

Hogun scowled at him, and he could see the dark look Sif shot toward Loki from the corner of her eye, though she didn’t dare move to glare properly. “This isn’t funny,” she hissed.

“Oh, no,” Loki agreed. “I was being quite literal. You’ve awakened some sort of, ah, protective spell on that—I said _don’t move_.”

Sif wobbled, but caught herself. She was still stretched high on her toes, leaning against the wall, and as strong as she was, it was a difficult pose for anyone to hold for long. Loki climbed up onto the dais, moving carefully toward her. Now that he’d pointed it out, Hogun could sense a faint electric tingle in the air, traces of powerful dark magic. Loki held out his hands, fingers spread, and as he approached Sif, blue-white light began to spark between the tips of his fingers. Hogun thought he saw him wince in pain, and Thor made an abortive movement toward the dais.

Loki’s eyes flicked to his brother for a moment before focusing on Sif. “You were right, brother,” he breathed. “The Jotun did leave something behind when they fled.” He took a deep breath, hands lifting ever so slowly. “A trap. Set for any Aesir who dared defile their temple.”

Thor had gone pale beneath his tan. On his other side, Fandral and Volstagg watched nervously, Fandral turning to check that they still had a clear path to the exit. Sif was visibly shaking with effort now, but held herself poised as Loki ever-so-carefully put his hands on her shoulders. “Loki—” she began, but he cut her off.

“You’re holding a circuit,” he said, his tone distracted, his mind clearly on the spells rather than the words. “The moment it breaks, this whole temple will collapse. The Jotun meant to slaughter as many Aesir as they could.” His hands were moving, creeping slowly up her arms. Blue sparked against their skin and Hogun heard them both hiss in pain. He could guess what was coming next, and he took a step closer to Thor in anticipation.

Sure enough, Loki said, “Hogun, Fandral, Volstagg… please take my brother outside. Just in case—”

“No!” Thor cried. “I won’t leave you. Either of you.”

Loki’s hands were as far as Sif’s elbows; there was a blue-white flash and she twitched and almost fell, but Loki was pressed against her back and she steadied herself against him. In a voice hoarse with pain and effort, Loki said, “Thor—brother. Sif will be free in a moment, and I can brace it long enough after that to escape, but you need to leave now. The ward reacts to Aesir blood, and the more of us it can sense, the harder it will be for me to control.”

Hogun caught Thor’s arm before the prince could protest again. “He’s right,” Hogun said. “We need to leave.”

“I’ll be fine,” Loki said, and spared a moment to flash them a bright, daredevil smile. His hands covered Sif’s, and blue-white power sparked between them. Then Sif dropped to the flats of her feet and ducked out from beneath Loki’s arms. She backed away from the wall, rubbing her palms together where the power had touched, and jumped down to the floor.

“Loki—” Thor said.

Hogun grabbed him firmly by the arm. “We’re leaving,” he said. “Now.”

“I’ll be right behind you,” Loki added through clenched teeth. “But you’re provoking the ward, and the longer—ow—the longer you stay the more difficult it will be.”

Thor made a noise low in his throat, anxious and frustrated, but when Hogun tugged on his arm he allowed himself to be drawn away. “Right behind us?” he demanded.

Loki’s attention was fixed entirely on his magic and the blue-white lightning that was beginning to gather around his hands and feet, but still Hogun saw the corner of his mouth twitch in a smile. “Right behind you, brother.”

The walls had begun to creak and groan ominously, dust drifting down from the rafters. Fandral grabbed Thor’s other arm, and Sif took Hogun’s torch, and they hurried back through the temple to the main doors. Bits of loose rock and broken ice clattered to the floor around them, and one of the pillars supporting the vaulted ceiling cracked and split. Thor kept glancing over his shoulder to the dais, where Loki was now almost fully engulfed in light, and Hogun had to put his free hand on Thor’s back to push him through the doors and out to safety across the mountaintop.

They had almost reached the edge of the plateau when the roof caved in.


	3. Last Night (Sif)

“If looks could kill,” Hogun said softly, “you would be dangerously close to regicide.”

Sif glanced at him as he folded himself down to sit beside her where she leaned with her back to one of the stone walls. The fire in the middle of the floor was finally warming the cave to some level of comfort; they’d set up camp half an hour ago and Sif was only just beginning to be able to feel her toes again. She could see why the frost giants had chosen this part of Svartalfheim for their temple – they hadn’t even begun to ascend the mountain and it was already cold as Hel.

Of all of them, only Loki didn’t seem much bothered by it ( _and how was that even_ fair _; he was the skinniest of all of them and should be the coldest, yet he had never even bothered with a hood_ ), and Sif returned to glaring at him where he was rummaging through his pack. “He’s not king yet,” she pointed out to Hogun, keeping her voice low as well. “And I would be perfectly justified.”

“You’re still mad?”

Sif transferred her glare to Hogun. “ _Yes._ ”

It was the glare that could set Fandral and Volstagg cringing and even Thor to looking abashed, but Hogun just raised an eyebrow. “It _was_ funny, though.”

Sif sighed. Across the cave, Thor sprawled against the wall with his legs stretched out before him, letting the snow from his boots melt in the heat of the fire and regaling Volstagg with a description of a feast he’d enjoyed the last time he visited Vanaheim. Fandral, who had gone outside to collect snow to melt, stomped back in, grumbling pointedly about stupid quests and bad ideas and why had he let Thor talk him into this when he could be in a warm bed with warmer maidens to, did he mention, keep him _warm?_ They had all forgotten about it already; had probably not given it a second thought since they’d finished laughing themselves silly. “I suppose,” she said, though she could hear the petulance in her own voice. “I just… I wish Thor wouldn’t drag Loki along on our adventures when he doesn’t want to go. Things run much more smoothly when he’s not here.”

“They’re brothers,” Hogun pointed out.

“Are they?” Sif said, and waved a hand at the other side of the cave. Loki, having dug a small book from his pack, had crossed over to Thor and kicked him in the ankle; without so much as blinking Thor drew his knees up so that Loki could slouch against the side of his legs to read. “He treats Thor like _furniture_!”

“They’re brothers,” Hogun repeated, as if that explained everything, and Sif sighed again. She had grown up with the princes and the Warriors Three, had spent most of her life in the company of boys and men, yet there were still some things about them that she could not quite understand, no matter how hard she tried. Like how Thor and Volstagg had once spent an hour banging their elbows together over and over, laughing like idiots over how much it hurt. Or when Thor and the Three had somehow got it into their heads that it would be great entertainment to fling themselves repeatedly at a solid stone wall, for no reason that Sif had been able to see. ( _“They’re trying to impress you,” Loki had said, sitting beside her on the bench as they watched. Sif had given him an incredulous look and answered, “The only thing they’re impressing on me is that they’re imbeciles.” Loki had just smiled that enigmatic little smile and offered her another biscuit from the basket he’d stolen from the kitchens.)_

Like how the word _brothers_ seemed to excuse all faults and upsets and insults between Thor and Loki.

“Besides,” Hogun said, “you thought it was funny when he set Fandral to kissing that tree. And when he sewed Volstagg into his bedroll after plying him with stew and mead the night before.”

Sif giggled despite herself at the memory. “And,” she added, because she had seen the glint of mischief in Thor’s eyes that Loki, too wrapped up in what he was reading, had missed, “when Thor does that.”

As she said it, Thor winked at Volstagg, then yanked his legs out of the way, sending Loki sprawling over backward with a yelp of surprise. He landed in an undignified heap and Thor dropped his legs casually over his chest, pinning him in place. “That’s enough reading, brother,” Thor said cheerfully. “We’re on an adventure, books aren’t allowed.”

Loki scowled at him, shoving ineffectually at Thor’s legs. “You are a philistine and a buffoon,” he complained. “Let me up.”

“No,” Thor said, all blue-eyed innocence.

Loki closed his eyes in the way that meant he was trying very hard not to shout, then tilted his head back to look at Volstagg and held out the book, as much as he could with his arm trapped under Thor’s heavy boots. “Could you put this in my bag, please?”

Volstagg’s eyes sparkled, but he obliged, tucking the book back into Loki’s pack. As soon as it was safely away, Loki did something that Sif couldn’t see but resulted in Thor letting out a decidedly girlish shriek and jumping a foot in the air. Loki was out from beneath his legs in a flash, tackling him sideways and trying to smash his face in the puddle of water left by Fandral’s boots. Thor struggled valiantly to escape – but if they often teased Loki that he was as thin as a snake, he wrestled like one too, winding his long limbs around Thor’s body and pinning him so that his face moved slowly but inexorably toward the puddle.

“Volstagg, my friend!” Thor cried. “Will you stand there laughing or will you aid your prince?”

“Well,” Volstagg answered, pretending to think about it, “I suppose I have nothing better to do at the moment,” and he lunged forward, wrapping his arms around Loki’s chest and trying to pry him loose.

Loki cursed and squirmed, but Volstagg was the strongest of them and Loki’s grip on Thor began to falter. “Fandral!” he called. “Will you let Volstagg take the glory that should be ours?”

“How could I, when you put it that way?” Fandral said, and sat down on Volstagg’s back, resulting in both of them tumbling over in a heap, Volstagg losing his grip on Loki, and Thor’s hair dipping ominously into the puddle. Thor roared in mock outrage and Loki cackled like a madman, while Volstagg cursed roundly at Fandral’s weight and Fandral shot back something Sif couldn’t quite make out but which involved beds, crushing, and displeased maidens.

Sif and Hogun traded amused glances. She could see the way his muscles had tensed; knew he had noticed how she’d drawn her feet underneath her. They moved at the same time, dodging to opposite sides of the fire, and when they dove into the fray, Sif went to Loki’s aid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The elbows thing, and the flinging-themselves-at-walls thing, are both actual things my actual guy friends have actually done in real life. 
> 
> I am as baffled as Sif.


	4. Yesterday (Volstagg)

“Geirný,” Fandral said decisively.

Volstagg raised his eyebrows. “Geirný?” he repeated. “Really? She _hates_ you.”

“She does _not_ ,” Fandral huffed, then had to watch where he put his feet as the trail Thor was breaking in the snow revealed a mass of fallen branches. “We just had a… misunderstanding.”

“Is that what you’re calling it?” Thor said. He turned so he was walking mostly backward through the sparse wood of Svartalfheim; beside him, Loki sighed in exasperation and put a hand on his arm to steer him. “I hardly think walking in on you and Jóra could be called a _misunderstanding_.”

Volstagg caught the flicker of a grin around Loki’s mouth at that and wondered, not for the first time, how exactly Geirný had known in which of the palace’s many sitting rooms to look for Fandral. Loki would never be so crass as to leave a sign of meddling, but tipping her off was exactly the sort of thing he’d do. Volstagg opened his mouth to ask, but Loki was already speaking: “So what about you, Thor? Which nubile court lady will my golden brother take for our victory feast?”

“Must I choose only one?” Thor asked plaintively.

“Yes,” Volstagg shot back. “We’re not all of us princes. Have some mercy for the common folk.”

“Speak for yourself,” Fandral said, and puffed out his chest, a gesture that went from silly to ridiculous given the amount of fur lining his coat. On his other side, Sif rolled her eyes as Fandral added, “Some of us don’t need crowns to catch a fair lady’s eye.”

“Her eye, yes,” Loki said lightly, “but her heart?” His gaze flicked over Fandral, lingering pointedly below his belt. “You’ll need a more impressive …sword, if you want to keep her heart.”

“My _sword_ is the longest and most nimble in all the Realms,” Fandral sniffed, and Hogun, walking behind them, snorted. “Besides,” Fandral added, “you’re one to talk, fighting with _knives_.”

Loki smirked. “I merely seek to protect your _delicate_ ego. After all, were I to wield my _spear_ —”

“Freya,” Thor interrupted, and Volstagg hid a smile. Loki might be called Silvertongue, but Thor had developed a knack for keeping that silver tongue from getting Loki punched. “Definitely Freya.”

Fandral’s eyebrows shot up and he whistled. Loki said, “You’re ambitious.”

“I’m a prince,” Thor said haughtily. Loki snickered before catching himself, and Thor scowled at him. “I am a _prince_ ,” he repeated, “and Freya is the fairest of court maidens—”

“Go on ahead,” Sif said abruptly, and stepped to the side off the trail. “I’ll catch up.”

Thor waved absently, clearly more occupied with thinking of Freya than with Sif answering nature’s call. But Loki met Volstagg’s eyes past Thor’s shoulder, and Volstagg knew what he was thinking: Sif had a worrying tendency to disappear whenever Thor started talking about the women he intended to bed. Everyone knew that Thor and Sif had once been lovers, years ago; what no one knew (except perhaps Loki, who knew an awful lot of things he oughtn’t) was exactly why they’d split apart. Neither had spoken of it, and the Warriors Three had quickly learned to follow their cues on the matter – which was to say, pretend nothing had happened.

Volstagg glanced over his shoulder, but Sif had already disappeared behind a clump of scraggly bushes and snow-covered evergreens some ways back along the trail. When he turned back around, Loki was smiling, the all-teeth grin that meant mischief was in the making.

Thor must have seen it too, because he said warningly, “Loki…”

Loki gave him an innocent look. “Just a bit of fun,” he said. “She’s being far too serious.”

Volstagg snorted. Sif was that, although Loki of all of them should know the dangers of teasing Sif when she was being too serious. But now Thor was starting to grin, and Fandral too. Hogun alone looked doubtful, so Volstagg clapped him on the shoulder. “Come now,” he said. “She laughed until she fell over when Loki turned your boots invisible. Don’t you think it’s her turn?”

Hogun shook his head, but it was exasperation rather than denial, and he let Volstagg tug him closer to the others. Loki glanced around at them, his grin widening, then he put a finger to his lips. “Be quiet and don’t move,” he said, and as they nodded assent, he began to weave golden power around them.

A minute later, Sif reappeared on the path they’d broken through the forest, shaking snow from her mittens. She looked up the path, and though her eyes passed directly over where the five of them stood, she appeared not to see them. She frowned, looking around again, more intently, head cocked to listen.

Next to Volstagg, Fandral was biting his lip to keep from snickering. Thor wore a broad, anticipatory grin, and even Hogun looked intrigued. Loki was still gesturing, gold light flickering around his fingers.

Back along the trail, Sif was frowning in earnest now, hurrying forward, eyes darting from side to side as she tried to figure out where they’d gone. At one point she turned all the way around to check behind her—and Loki exhaled, a glimmer of gold flowing from his fingers toward her.

Sif’s reaction, when she turned forward to find a svartalfen warrior directly in front of her, brandishing a bloody khopesh and screeching in victory, was priceless. Her mouth dropped open and she leaped backward, scrabbling for her spear – but another illusion had hidden the tangle of fallen branches at her feet and she tumbled head over heels to land on her rear in the snow.

Volstagg wasn’t sure which of them broke first, but suddenly they were all doubled over and laughing too hard to breathe – even Hogun, who rarely did more than crack a smile. Volstagg managed to lift his head long enough to see Sif staring at them, the illusory svartalf gone, understanding slowly dawning on her face. He tried to warn Loki that she was standing, that she was stalking toward them, but Loki and Thor were clinging to each other to stay upright, and neither of them noticed her approach until Sif dumped handfuls of snow down the backs of both their necks.

Thor squawked and stumbled away, pawing frantically at his back. “Sif!” he protested.

Loki, who had the sense to shake the snow out of his collar before straightening, added, “It was just a bit of fun!”

“‘A bit of fun’?” Sif echoed incredulously. “You think _dark elves_ are funny?”

“Well,” Loki said, trying (and failing) to look abashed, “not dark elves _per se_ …”

“But the look on your face,” Fandral wheezed between laughs.

“And the graceful shield maiden going top over teakettle,” Volstagg added.

“Truly,” Thor said, “my brother is the master of mischief.” He thumped Loki on the back, then draped an arm over his shoulders, and for just a moment Loki’s smile turned shy, delighted, in the way no one but Thor could ever get from him. It seemed a silly thing to be jealous of, that smile, yet Volstagg sometimes found himself wishing he could get that smile from Loki, for no other expression of his was quite so honest, so genuinely _happy_.

“A master indeed,” Sif muttered. “Maybe next time he’ll turn his mischief on _you_ , and you’ll learn to leave him behind when he says he doesn’t want to come.”

Loki pulled back to give Thor an exaggeratedly thoughtful look. “Hmm,” he said, drawing it out. “Now _there’s_ an ide—ouch!” He jerked away from Thor, rubbing at his arm where Thor had pinched him.

Thor raised his eyebrows innocently, then said to Sif, “My brother would never stay behind while there’s adventure to be had.”

“No,” Volstagg said. “That’s you, who can’t stay put when adventure calls.”

“He’s right,” Loki said. “The _only_ reason I’m here is because you’re like to get your fool self killed by a dark elf. Or by tripping over your own boots and drowning in a puddle of half-melted snow.”

“Come now, brother,” Thor retorted. “Give me a little credit. At least make it an army of dark elves!” He made as if to wrap an arm around Loki’s neck and knuckle his hair, but Loki ducked out of the way, slipping with deceptive speed across the snow to suddenly be safely behind Volstagg. Grinning, Volstagg put his hands on his belt – a challenge to Thor – but Thor just laughed. “Anyway, what matters is that you’re here, right?”

Loki was still behind him so Volstagg couldn’t see his face, but he could hear that soft shy smile in Loki’s voice, just for a moment, when he said, “Don’t worry, brother. I’ll always be around to keep you out of trouble.”


	5. Two Days Ago (Thor)

Thor wasn’t surprised to find Loki sprawled on a couch in a high observatory, booted feet crossed on the cushions, with a book in hand and several more stacked at his elbow. _Disappointed_ , perhaps, but not surprised. Loki didn’t even look up when Thor swept into the room, and a flash of jealousy stabbed into Thor’s heart, that mere _books_ should command Loki’s attention over his own brother. Loki spent far too much time reading lately, holed up in the library or the tower with dusty old tomes, and Thor was tired of it. He leaned back down the stairwell to shout, “I found him!”, then turned to his brother.

“Loki!” he boomed. “What in all the realms are you doing skulking about up here alone?”

“Reading,” Loki answered flatly. He still hadn’t so much as glanced Thor’s way.

Thor sighed. This was going to be more difficult than he’d thought. “You are _always_ reading,” he said. “I think you have been afflicted with some sort of illness that makes you crave dust and ink over sunlight and action.”

“There’s sunlight,” Loki said, and waved long fingers vaguely at the observatory’s huge arched windows.

“Yes,” Thor said, “but you are sitting in the shade.”

Loki shrugged one shoulder. “Sunlight moves.”

He _still_ hadn’t looked up, and this was getting terribly annoying. Thor crossed the room and flung himself onto the end of the couch. Loki pulled his feet out of the way at the last moment, but as soon as Thor was settled Loki straightened his legs again, dropping his feet onto Thor’s lap.  Thor studied them for a moment, debating whether to pinch the tender spot at the back of Loki’s knee to get him to move. But that would only annoy Loki further, so he settled for clapping a hand on Loki’s leg and shaking him. “Do you remember that Jotnar temple on Svartalfheim? The one the beasts built when they were invading all the other realms?”

“Yes,” Loki said, and turned a page in his book. “In fact, I seem to recall it was I who told you about it.”

“I asked Tyr about it,” Thor said. “He said it’s still there, and that the dark elves and the dwarves won’t go near it.” He paused, waiting for Loki to say something, but Loki was frowning at the book and clearly paying Thor no attention at all. Exasperated, Thor reached over and pushed the book down so that he could see Loki’s face. “We need to go.”

Green eyes closed for a moment and Loki took a deep breath, then released it in a dramatic sigh. His eyes opened again and met Thor’s, annoyance clear and bright in his gaze. “No, we don’t.”

“Why not?” Thor demanded. “It will be glorious! We haven’t gone on an adventure since that trip to Nidavellir—”

“You mean the _disaster_ of an expedition into the wyvern cave you said was empty?” Loki said. “The one which was, in fact, home to an _entire family_ of very hungry wyverns?”

Thor rolled his eyes. “It wasn’t _that_ bad—”

“Hogun almost lost his arm, Fandral was bitten four times across the stomach, and you were hit on the head so hard you couldn’t see straight for a week,” Loki interrupted. “If that is what ‘not bad’ means I should hate to find out what you would consider a true disaster.” He tugged the book out from beneath Thor’s hand and held it up again. “Do what you like, but I’m not going.”

This time Thor plucked the book away entirely; he almost tossed it over his shoulder but the last time he’d been so careless with a book, Loki had cursed him to be unable to eat anything except bitter oats for three months during the height of midsummer feasting, and Odin had told Thor that it was his own fault and to treat books more carefully in the future. So he made a point of closing the book and setting it gently on the floor beside the couch, well out of Loki’s reach.

When he looked back up, Loki had crossed his arms and was glaring down his nose at him. “No, Thor,” he said. “I am not going on another ridiculous ‘adventure’. I have studying to do, I am working on a very important project—”

“You are gathering dust,” Thor said. “You never spar with us anymore. You hardly even come to dinner!”

“Because I’m _busy!_ ” Loki said in exasperation. “And I would rather keep my head attached to my shoulders than lose it haring off on some silly quest to feed your ego!”

“Wait,” came Volstagg’s voice from the stairwell. “Who are we feeding and can I have some?”

Loki clapped a hand over his eyes as the Warriors Three and Sif clambered into the observatory. Thor patted him on the leg in mock sympathy, then said to the others, “We are feeding our sense of adventure! This will be a glorious expedition, my friends.”

“Are you sure about that?” Fandral said doubtfully. “I seem to recall you saying it involves mountains. And snow. And cold.”

“Indeed,” Thor said. “But never fear, for my brother has agreed to come with us, and—”

“What?!” Loki yelped. “I did n—Ow!” He rubbed the back of his knee and glared at Thor.

Thor smiled brightly at him and kept talking as if the interruption hadn’t happened. “—and I’m sure he can use his magic to keep us warm.”

Loki shot Sif a pleading look; Sif made a sympathetic face in return, and said to Thor, “If he doesn’t want to come, then perhaps we should let him stay.”

“No, my friend,” Thor said. “My brother has been infected with a rot of the mind, which makes him crave unnaturally the scent of dust and ink. We must take him with us for his own good! Once he has had a taste of adventure he’ll forget he ever thought of staying here with his _books_.”

Loki heaved a put-upon sigh. “It is you who has been afflicted with a mind-rot, brother. I am only surprised that your brain has not liquefied from disuse and leaked out your—”

Thor signaled Fandral and Volstagg, and they lunged forward to grab Loki by the arms. At the same time, Thor grabbed his legs, and together they lifted Loki off the couch and into the air. Loki yelped a protest, squirming and thrashing in their grip, but he had no leverage, and with his hands trapped he couldn’t work magic to free himself, either. He was relegated to hanging between them like a sack of potatoes, scowling ineffectually at Thor while Sif giggled and even Hogun cracked a smile.

“I hate you,” Loki muttered.

“I know,” Thor agreed cheerfully. He gestured with his chin toward the stairs, adding, “Let’s go see what’s for dinner.” Which meant an uncomfortable bumping down the spiral staircase, then parading through most of the palace and the entire dining hall, and there was no way Loki would—

“Fine!” Loki shouted. “Fine! I’ll come with you, all right? Now put me down!”

“Swear it,” Thor said immediately. “Swear you’ll actually come with us.”

Loki kicked him, though with his leg trapped under Thor’s arm it didn’t have much of an effect. “I said I’d do it, isn’t that enough?”

“I know you, brother. You’ll ‘forget’ to pack, or you’ll hide in the library and claim you got distracted—”

“That was not my fault. _Eir_ found _me_.”

“Swear,” Thor repeated. “Just in case.”

“I _hate_ you,” Loki said again. “Fine. I swear.”

“Swear what?”

Loki rolled his eyes, his head falling back in exaggerated aggravation. “I swear I’ll come with you on your ill-advised, ridiculous, imbecilic, hare-brained, foolish, stupid quest to the Jotun temple, even though it will probably get us all killed in the most terribly gruesome and painful way possible. Are you happy?”

Thor pretended to consider for a moment, then nodded to Fandral and Volstagg. “Yes,” he said. “I’m very happy.” They let go, and Loki dropped to the ground, rolling to his feet and out of their reach in a flash. His normally neat hair was mussed and his eyes were poison green as he glared at Thor. Thor favored him with his brightest smile, tossed him a jaunty wave, and headed once more for the steps, Sif and the Three at his heels. “We leave tomorrow at sunrise,” he said over his shoulder. “Pack warmly!”

*             *             *

In retrospect, Thor probably should have expected it when at dinner that night, all his food tasted the way the manure pile behind the stables smelled.

Of course, Loki was nowhere to be found.


	6. Now (Fandral)

Fandral clawed at the rubble of the fallen Jotnar temple, feet skidding on the icy blocks. The others were shouting Loki’s name, desperation tingeing their voices, broken occasionally by coughing as the dust got the better of them. They moved meticulously despite their panic, spread out in a line and working their way across the piles of rubble toward the back of the building. Toward the dais where they’d last seen Loki, surrounded by blue-white magic, risking his own life to save theirs.

Yet for all their efforts, Fandral feared that they still might not be able to find Loki. He’d been wearing mostly black, the same color as the gleaming stone that had made up most of the temple, with only a bit of green and gold trimming; and his pale skin was nearly the same color as the snow. The sun had set while they were inside the temple, the moon and stars hidden by thick clouds, and now the only light came from the torches they carried. It bounced and scattered off the silver ice and black stone, casting strange shadows which flickered at the edges of Fandral’s vision and made it difficult to see anything clearly. And, because things were not bad enough already, it was beginning to snow: fat heavy flakes that would soon completely bury the ruins of the temple – and Loki.

Unless he wasn’t in there. He hadn’t wanted to come, Fandral reminded himself. Maybe he was hiding, an elaborate prank to get revenge on Thor for dragging him on this misadventure. Except that Thor was utterly terrified, digging at the rubble in raw panic, screaming for his brother. Loki had a twisted sense of humor sometimes, but Fandral couldn’t imagine that he would not have revealed himself by now if he could, that he would allow Thor to believe him dead for more than a few seconds (just enough for a laugh, just a bit of fun), much less the several minutes that had passed since the temple’s collapse.

But the alternative – that Loki lay buried somewhere beneath the mounds of ice and stone, already dead or dying a slow crushing death – was too horrible to consider.

Fandral pushed the thoughts from his mind and kept digging. His hands ached, mittens sliced clean through by sharp stone, blood leaking sluggishly from the flesh beneath; his chest hurt from breathing rock dust and frozen air; one ankle throbbed where he’d slipped on the ice and twisted it. But it didn’t matter – if Loki was under the rubble somewhere, he was almost certainly hurt far worse—

Then Fandral spotted a flash of green in the torchlight, and his heart stopped. Green, the same shade as the trim on Loki’s coat, barely visible beneath a thick coating of ice. He clawed at the snow and rock – yes, black fabric edged with gold and green, and long pale fingers trapped in ice and beginning to turn blue from cold. Fandral shouted, “Over here!” at the top of his lungs.

Even as the others came running, even as Fandral continued to dig into the rubble, trying simultaneously to get close enough to remove it and stay far enough away to avoid crushing Loki further, he prayed to the Norns, prayed to Fate: _Let him be alive._

Thor clambered up beside him, a wail of anguish in his throat as he scrabbled at the stone, bloody fingers leaving dark red streaks on the rocks he flung aside.

_Please._

Hogun on Thor’s other side, holding the torches in one hand and using the other to brace Sif as she leaned out to pry up a fallen stone slab.

_Don’t take our friend from us._

Volstagg at Fandral’s elbow, strong hands smashing a layer of ice to powder and freeing the rock Fandral was trying to dislodge.

_Please._  


	7. Later

Loki awoke slowly, feeling as though he was swimming up from a terrible cold depth. His head ached horribly, and a dull pain throbbed along his limbs. He was simultaneously overheated and freezing, too warm at the surface but cold, frighteningly cold, at his core. He was lying on something hard and uneven, half-sitting up, his head lolled back awkwardly. Gradually he realized that the something was a person – Thor, his scent of ozone and iron unmistakable and comfortingly familiar, his arms wrapped around Loki and heavy blankets covering both of them. Thor’s skin was hot against Loki’s, warmth radiating from Loki’s shoulders to his feet, and Loki realized with a jolt that, except for the blankets, he was completely nude and Thor nearly so.

That was enough to startle him the rest of the way to awareness and he tried to push away, but his arms were trapped under Thor’s and the blankets were heavy and his head _hurt_ and his body wasn’t responding like he wanted it to—

“Loki!”

Fandral’s voice, and Loki opened his eyes to see a pale yellow shape that gradually resolved to Fandral’s face, lit by dim firelight. His concerned expression faded to one of profound relief, and he reached out to clasp Loki’s shoulder through the blankets. “Thank the Norns,” he murmured. “You’re all right.”

“For some definitions of ‘all right’,” Loki said. His voice was hoarse and ragged, and he swallowed, but his throat was dry. He felt like he’d simultaneously taken a beating on the training grounds and worked a difficult and incredibly taxing spell, but that wasn’t right, Thor had dragged him along on some stupid quest to Svartalfheim…

“Easy,” Fandral said. “I’ll get you water. Don’t try to move—you were frozen solid, we’ve been trying to get you warm for hours.”

Loki frowned. At least that explained why he was bundled skin-to-skin with Thor: it was the fastest way to transfer body heat, and clothes – especially clothes wet with snow or ice melt – would only hamper the effort. Thor himself was apparently asleep; he hadn’t so much as twitched at their voices, and his breath was steady against Loki’s ear. Loki managed to lift his head enough to watch Fandral cross to a small fire a few feet away, where Loki’s damp clothes were drying over a clothesline improvised from Sif’s spear, Volstagg’s axe, Mjölnir, and a length of rope. Hogun, Volstagg, and Sif were asleep on the other side of the fire, curled together like puppies and covered with Thor’s cape; Loki guessed that all their bedrolls had gone toward getting him warm. They were in a narrow, low-ceilinged cave, not the one they’d sheltered in last night, but one dug roughly into the side of a jagged mound of obsidian and ice. Thor, and thus Loki, was leaning against the back wall of the cave where the most heat would be trapped, and which, not incidentally, put Sif and the Warriors Three between them and any potential threats coming at them from the cave mouth.

Fandral returned with a small cup of water, and Loki endured the embarrassment of being helped to drink, since he still couldn’t get his arms free. Fandral didn’t tease him or make any snide remarks about it, though, which was a frightening testament to just how worried he’d been. With the water easing his throat, Loki asked, “What happened?”

“You don’t remember?” Fandral said.

Loki shook his head. “I remember… we went into the temple. It was empty, but Sif found something…” He wracked his brain, but all he could remember beyond that was a flash of dark and fear and a terrible, bone-deep cold, and he finally managed a shrug. “That’s all.”

“It was trapped,” Fandral said flatly. He sat down beside Loki’s legs, for which Loki was grateful as it meant he wouldn’t have to strain his neck looking up at him. “The temple collapsed. You did something to hold it off long enough for the rest of us to escape, but you were buried.” His gaze turned inward with the memory, his expression darkening. “We’re not sure what happened, Hogun thinks the trap backfired and Volstagg said it could have been a fortunate accident, but… when we dug you out you were frozen solid in a block of ice. It saved you from getting crushed, but you were almost blue enough to be a frost giant yourself by the time we got you free. Thor was hysterical – Sif had to slip him a sleeping draught to calm him down.”

Loki snorted, trying to cover the sudden chill that ran through him at the thought of what had (almost) happened. “And here I thought he was just doing his usual impression of a log,” he joked. Fandral’s mouth quirked, but his expression was still grim, and Loki added, “I _told_ him this was a bad idea.”

“And you can tell him so again, repeatedly and often, when he wakes up,” Fandral said. “This was a disaster.”

“It was that,” Loki agreed. Even if he didn’t remember any of it, the thought that he’d been nearly crushed to death in a falling building was sobering. But he didn’t want Fandral to know, and moreover he didn’t want Fandral to look so upset, so Loki said, “Although…” and trailed off, letting a sly smirk touch his mouth. Fandral tilted his head, intrigued, and Loki finished, “We _did_ get to see Sif fall down. Possibly for the first time in her entire life.”

That got the real smile Loki was hoping for, the darkness leaving Fandral’s face, and Fandral elbowed him in the leg. “Now I know you’re all right,” he said. “She’s not going to forgive you for that, though.”

“There are many things Sif will not forgive me for,” Loki retorted. “So many that she cannot remember them all, and so I am safe by virtue of forgetfulness.”

Fandral chuckled, then sat forward to clasp Loki’s neck, his expression turning serious again. “You saved our lives,” he said. “We all are in your debt.”

Loki looked away, suddenly embarrassed. “I don’t even remember it,” he muttered.

“That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen,” Fandral said. “Let Hogun and Sif mock your seidr all they want, you saved us with magic and the next time Thor tells you to stop studying I shall brain him with a book.”

The mental image that conjured was enough to make Loki grin. Fandral grinned back, giving his shoulder a reassuring shake before letting go. “Get some rest,” he said. “You’ve earned it. And if you’re feeling up for it tomorrow, we can try digging through the rubble for those breastplates Sif found. They’ll make a nice trophy to bring back. Maybe nice enough to keep your parents from condemning Thor to muck out the stables for a year for this entire disaster.”

“Oh, I very much doubt that,” Loki said. “ _If_ Father finds out about this, Thor will be mucking out the stables – and doing hard labor at the forge, and scrubbing floors in the palace – for quite a bit longer than a year. He might even suffer the torment of having to sit through additional months of history lessons on the Jotun and why it’s a bad idea to cross them.”

“If?” Fandral repeated, eyes sparkling.

Loki smirked. “Let’s just say Thor might find it in his best interest to make this up to me. _Thoroughly._ ”

Fandral laughed out loud at that, and clapped Loki on the shoulder again. “You’re devious,” he said. “That will be far more entertaining to watch than stable-mucking.”

“Which is why, I’m sure, you and the others won’t mention anything to Father,” Loki said.

“You have my word,” Fandral agreed. “Now rest, I mean it. We’ll need you to help us find those trophies.”

Loki nodded, and let his head fall back against Thor’s shoulder, his eyes drifting closed. His brother was not a particularly comfortable cushion, all hard muscle and bone, but he was warm and familiar and reassuring in a way that Loki needed. Loki hadn’t been lying when he told Fandral he couldn’t remember what had happened after Sif had called them over to look at something, but what he hadn’t mentioned, what he wasn’t even sure he could articulate, was that where those memories ought to be was instead a terrifying dark chill, a bone-deep cold that whispered of black skies and blue ice, and a sensation of being enveloped, enfolded… _home_. He couldn’t understand it, couldn’t begin to explain it, and didn’t want to. It frightened him, and more than anything he wanted to forget it.

Still, the trip hadn’t been a complete loss. He might have _almost_ died, but he hadn’t; he was all right and he would soon forget that terrible chill in his bones where memories of the temple ought to be. As Fandral had said, the others owed him a debt for saving them with magic, so maybe they’d stop teasing him about his studies. If they found the breastplates, they’d get the prestige that would come from returning relics of the Jotun war. And on top of everything, Loki would have Thor at his beck and call for as long as he could manage to stretch it out.

Loki let himself smile, just a little, and settled himself more comfortably against Thor. No, this adventure hadn’t actually been such a disaster.

He might even call it a victory.


End file.
